Londonderry High School’s boys’ and girls’ cross-country squads both put in considerable efforts to three-team meets and an invitational last week, with some pretty pleasing results.
The two Londonderry squads performed exceptionally well in three-team races at Alvirne High School in Hudson on Tuesday, Sept. 11, with the Lancer males and Lady Lancers both simply pummeling the competition where team scores were concerned.
The LHS boys finished with the low team score of 21 to defeat Dover (54) and the host Alvirne Broncos (63) handily.
Coach Matt Smith’s Lancers had no less than seven of the top 10 finishers, and that determined group was paced by the victorious Matt Griffin who crossed the finish line in 17 minutes and 20 seconds.
Eric Nowak finished third overall (17:41), Dylan Hotter was fourth (17:51), Ben Palumbo wound up sixth (18:03), Ryan Young ended up seventh (18:31), Kerry Daley placed eighth (18:38), and Christian Smith was ninth (18:45).
“We’ve gotten off to a great start,” said coach Smith. “Matt Griffin, Eric Nowak, Ben Palumbo, really that whole group have been running very well. The guys felt really good about beating Pinkerton in our first meet, and we’re excited to get into our invitational schedule beginning on Saturday in Nashua. Saturday will be a great barometer for us. There will be a lot of good teams there, and we’re excited to see how we stack up.”
There on the Alvirne course that day, LHS girls’ coach Ed Burgess saw his Lady Lancers win easily by scoring 26 points to Alvirne’s 50 and Dover’s 56.
Veteran Caitlin Boufford finished first for her team and second overall (21:06), Grace McDonough placed fourth (21:23), Cailey McDonough was fifth (22:46), Cailin Borovicka placed seventh (22:58), and Jasmine Brown ended up eighth overall (23:03).
Both LHS crews then took part in the Nashua North Invitational at Mines Falls Park on Saturday the 15th with great results for the males and more modest ones for the Lady Lancers.
In the boys’ varsity race, Londonderry finished a distant second to Concord – which scored an excellent 24 – by bagging a team tally of 72. Pinkerton came in third with a 96.
The locals had Griffin place eighth overall (16:18), Nowak get 12th (16:31), Hoglund finish 16th (16:37), and Daley wind up 18th (16:44).
In the boys’ JV race, the Lancers finished third behind Pinkerton and Concord with Chris Burpeau (seventh) and Carter Letalien (10th) both finishing among the top 10 line-crossers.
In the girls’ races, the Londonderry varsity group placed seventh out of nine teams with Boufford placing 20th and the JV group got sixth out of 10 teams with Abigail Rollinson finishing a strong seventh.
The Londonderry boys took care of business in a big way in their Mack Plaque race with Pinkerton recently and thus had already contributed to the LHS plaque push which continues Saturday. While Londonderry’s other teams are playing Pinkerton squads that day the LHS boy and girl harriers will be at the annual Manchester Invitational.